At first glance Breed seem like a total rip-off of every cliché sci-fi movie, book, and previously released computer game ever made. Even the four-man tactical team-based combat that allows you to cycle to any of the characters can be traced back to games like Space Hulk.

A man goes on holiday to Greece once and what does he find when he comes home ? A cd-rom disk with the illustrious title "Breed" noted on it. I immediately thought it was some stunt from the government to increase the amount of children (what else with such a title ?) and installed it immediately on my pc. To find out that this had nothing to do with children, my disappointment was huge. But did it remain or did it make place for euphoria ? You'll soon find out in the following lines.

Breed, like Halo, takes pains to integrate a single-player plot. You're fighting a war with some Covenant-like aliens in some far-off section of space, but that turned out to be a diversion. Meanwhile, the Breed invaded and captured Earth. The Darwin is the only space carrier of its kind now left in Earth's military fleet, and its crew and complement have returned to take back Earth, against all odds.

Somewhere in the early 2600's most of planet earth left to colonize other planets. Shortly there after an alien breed started attacking our pilgrims, causing major destruction and loss of life. After answering a distress call to earth, our fleet engaged the breed across the system. Upon our returning to Earth, we are only to find that the breed out flanked us and attacked and attempted to take earth. With the majority of our defenses away, they were very successful. Only small packs of resistance remain, until the US Darwin came to save the day. Now it's up to you and the USC grunts to take Earth back and restore hope to mankind.

There are also some horrific technical glitches, which the developer would be wise to address in an early patch. Still, the game has some bracing action, and includes a driving, pulse-pounding soundtrack.

Overall, I think this game is pretty mediocre. Breed has incorporated some good features from other games but doesn't bring anything new to the genre. To be honest, Breed didn't impress me much. There are serious bugs which are still present despite downloading the first patch. My recommendation would be to try it before buying, especially if you like the genre - you may just like it.

Folks, I like you all way too much to lie to you. I sat down with Breed when I first got my copy, set the manual on my reading table (next to the toilet, of course) and started shooting away. I skipped the tutorials, for after all, I have played a few hundred FPS’s in my day. One more can’t be any different, right?

In a nutshell, while I had some fun with the vehicles and the massive scale of some of the battles, AI bugs, stupid design decisions and awful sounds coupled with dated graphics really didn't help me to immerse myself in it at all. Unfortunately, it just seems like Brat bit off a little more than they could chew, and to top it off, they hired stoned, aging German rockers to set the mood with their killer riffs. And I do mean killer riffs. They'll be the end of you if you listen to them for longer than 2 hours. The story is woefully unoriginal, and so are most of the basic ideas that drive the gameplay. This is nothing we haven't seen already and seen it done much, much better.

If you're really into this game, you'll like it enough. However, the problems I had with it was enough to make me shelve it within a few days. It does not have an impressive multi-player and the gameplay is strictly "make things difficult for you when they shouldn't".

Breed makes a horrible first impression. This single-player sci-fi shooter takes so outrageously long to load that it should ship with an alarm clock to wake you up when it's finally ready. Breed then makes many more bad impressions once you actually get to play it. You quickly see that it takes a lot of its ideas from the hit game Halo (and in turn from films like Starship Troopers and Aliens), and that it suffers from flimsy writing, atrocious voice acting, generic enemies and settings, frame rate hits, poor mission design, lagging multiplayer, and severe bugs. All isn't totally lost, though. For all that Breed does wrong, it at least lets you control some neat vehicles in expansive environments. Still, even in its good moments--which are uncommon--Breed is a poor game. During its many bad moments, you'll want to avoid it altogether.

It’s probably not a good thing when the developers and publishers blame each other for creating an awful game, but this is exactly what happened with Breed. Once dubbed a Halo-killer, the first person shooter was marred with various problems that the developers (Brat Designs) claimed the publishers (CDV) added at the last minute. The publishers admitted to tampering with the game, but they said they improved the game from a nearly unplayable state. No matter who’s to blame, this is far from the Halo-killer it was originally envisioned to be.

It's kind of sad. Breed isn't awful. It should be so lucky. Truly awful games like Postal 2, Trespasser, and Daikatana have a claim to infamy. But Breed is worse than awful; it's absolutely unremarkable and utterly forgettable, the epitome of the generic computer game, lacking a shred of anything clever or offensive or ambitious. In the end, Breed should be sold in a brown paper wrapper with the words "First-Person Shooter" stenciled on the cover.

Even with all the bile vented, there’s still more to complain about. But time’s up. No chance to wax poetic about game-killing bugs (when was the last time you exited a vehicle only to fall through the earth?). No room to touch upon tile poorly executed multiplayer matches. No more. Please, no more.

I can’t recommend Breed to anyone. Unless you love to be tortured, and you’re the kind of guy or girl that gets turned on by pain, I wouldn’t wish this game on you. Stay far away from Breed, far, far away. Once I completed the game, I quickly pulled the disc out of my PC, threw it on the ground, whipped out my old johnson, and relieved myself on the still warm shiny plastic that was Breed.